The Navy Bought Fake Chinese Microchips That Could Have Disarmed U.S. Missiles

Last year, the U.S. Navy bought 59,000 microchips for use in
everything from missiles to transponders and all of them turned
out to be counterfeits from China.

Wired reports the chips weren't only low-quality fakes, they
had been made with a "back-door" and could have been remotely
shut down at any time.

If left undiscovered the result could have rendered useless U.S.
missiles and killed the signal from aircraft that tells everyone
whether it's friend or foe.

Apparently foreign chip makers are often better at making cheap
microchips and U.S. defense contractors are loathe to pass up the
better deal.

The problem remains with these "trojan-horse" circuits that can
be built into the chip and are almost impossible to detect --
especially without the original plans to compare them to.

The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Agency (IARPA) is now
looking for ways to check the chips to make sure they haven't
been hacked in the production process.

Expect to see a whole lot more funding directed to this goal. Or,
considering IARPA is the research and development section
of the intelligence community -- expect the money to be spent --
don't expect to see where.